My Thoughts On PURITY Culture + 5 Ways You're FIGHTING Your Femininity ＊and how to stop it＊ ⧸⧸ Ep. 6
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Summary
5 ways you are fighting your femininity, why the Israelites were traumatized by hearing the Ten Commandments from God Himself, and what are my thoughts on purity culture? All this and more on today s episode of the Classically Abbey Podcast!
Transcript
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Five ways you are fighting your femininity, why the Israelites were traumatized by hearing
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the Ten Commandments from God Himself, and what are my thoughts on purity culture?
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All this and more on today's episode of the Classically Abbey Podcast.
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Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's episode of the Classically Abbey Podcast.
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We have a lot to talk about today, and I'm very excited to get into it.
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If you are new here, make sure to subscribe to my channel, as well as to the podcast wherever
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you listen to podcasts. It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, really just about anywhere.
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So if you are interested in subscribing, make sure to do so. And I would love if you would
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leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps me out. We are going to be doing a main
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topic today that's really interesting. We are talking about five ways that we are fighting
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our femininity. I think that we are living in a time where we are constantly being taught
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to push away those things that really do make us womanly and more feminine. And I want to
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talk about how we can stop fighting those things. We'll also be doing our weekly calendar,
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our faith talk, and stay tuned till the end where I'll be answering my premium subscriber
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questions. If you'd like to become a premium subscriber and submit questions for future
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podcast episodes, make sure to head over to classicallyabbey.substack.com where you'll
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get access to a ton of exclusive content, including my book club, as well as weekly exclusive articles
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and an amazing community of women. And it's only $7 a month.
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So now that I've said all of the things, I'm really looking forward to sharing a lot about
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what I've been thinking about lately. And I just want to mention if my voice sounds a little
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bit odd, my son had hand, foot and mouth, as I mentioned in a previous episode, and then
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he caught a cold. And like two days later, legitimately two days later, and I've been kind of fighting
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off that same cold. So I don't have the worst full blown version of it, but it's kind of
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like in my sinuses, a little bit in my nose, a little bit in my ears, a little bit of a
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sore throat, just like a little bit of everything. And so I'm, uh, I'm just kind of in a fog as
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far as just muddling my way through it, but my voice might sound a little off. That is why.
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Okay. So let's just get into our weekly catch up. So let's start with this. I actually wrote
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an article about it for my sub stack, and I'm just going to briefly touch on it here
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a little bit less than I did in the, in the article, but we are reading the book, the happiness
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hypothesis for book club. Actually, we just finished it. We did our book club meeting last
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night and it really got me to thinking, and I really enjoyed it a lot. I really recommend
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it. If you want to check it out, uh, you know, it's available anywhere.
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I listened to it on audible. Um, it's by Jonathan height. And funnily enough, one of the things
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that actually got me to thinking was something that he, he wasn't a proponent of, but he was
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kind of explaining his train of thought. And when he was in high school, at the end of high
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school, he sort of had an existential crisis when he realized that he was an atheist and
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he, he was nihilistic and he was kind of like, okay, well, how do I make life meaningful
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to me? And for him, it was, well, I have to live life to the fullest because there's nothing
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after this. Now he, Jonathan height is an atheist, but, um, he does kind of shift that perspective
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in the book, the perspective of, you know, living life to the fullest in a negative way.
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But it did get me to thinking, you know, my life in many ways is more mundane because I
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am, you know, a stay at home mom. I'm a homemaker and I'm doing a lot of the same things. A lot
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of the same chores day in and day out. I wash my son's high chair 50 times a day. I am sweeping
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the floor. I am cooking dinner. I am washing dishes. And I kind of asked myself, okay, well,
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is this what living life to the fullest looks like? Or is it those women who say, you know,
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I don't want to have kids. I don't want to have a family and can jet set anywhere they want,
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can have brunch on their own schedule, can kind of live life more for themselves. Um,
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which looks very glamorous, you know, it looks very appealing from the outside. And after sitting
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with that for a while, I kind of, I kind of realized something. And I think maybe this is
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a useful realization on a number of topics that you could kind of use whenever you're starting to
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question whether you'd be happier doing something else or whether the grass is greener. And that is
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my general level of happiness and contentment is very, very high. I have a fundamental happiness
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built into my day to day because of all of the things that I have. So because I'm married,
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because I have a son, because I get to be with him every day and I get to see him grow,
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my actual like base level of happiness and contentment is up here. And so I was sort of
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super imposing my current level of happiness on the activities of the life that these women are
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living where they're jet setting and traveling and doing all these fun things. And I say this
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because I did that before I got married, uh, before I met my husband, I was traveling a lot
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because I was an opera singer. I was doing things on my own schedule. I was dating for fun. I was
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dressing immodestly. And at the end of the day, I was really not very happy. Like my day to day was,
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was theoretically a little more exciting, but at the end of every day, I came home and I felt
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empty because I didn't have someone waiting for me at home. I didn't have my little baby
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to play with and to hug and to hold. And it looks like very, a very fun thing to see these women
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doing these crazy things. I mean, on social media, it looks really nice that they're getting to do
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these amazing trips and, you know, they're always have like a glass of wine in their hand or something
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like that. But at the same time, when I actually lived that it wasn't as glamorous as it looks,
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but because of where I'm at now, I can kind of look at those activities and think,
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oh, that would be fun. Maybe that's what a life of fun looks like because my base level is so good
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because my base level of contentment is so high. So the lesson here is not that I should be giving
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up everything I have, God forbid, and running off to do these crazy things. It's that my, you have
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to remember where your, where the actual contentment is. And then you can sprinkle in those fun
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activities instead of making them your whole life. So instead of saying, okay, I need to throw out the
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life I'm living and go do this living life to the fullest, like lifestyle, instead of doing that,
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you can think, okay, I want to live my mundane life because that mundane life actually is what brings
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recontentment, but sometimes it can get a little monotonous. And so I should sprinkle in those
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fun-filled activities from, from this picture that I'm seeing. So I can take a vacation once or twice
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a year. I should do date night once a week. I should go see a movie. I can go do brunch with my friends
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and sprinkle in those fun-filled activities while maintaining the joy that your mundane life brings
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you. So I don't know if that made sense, but I would love if you would leave a comment, uh, you can
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leave a comment on YouTube if you're watching this, or you can leave a comment on my sub stack where you
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will get access to the comment section. So I thought that was kind of an interesting realization and it
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was very helpful for me to remember kind of what that mundane, I want to say mundanity. It's not a word
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mundaneness. Sure. That mundane, where that mundaneness, uh, really provides for me and brings
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me joy and that it is something that is the root of all of my, my happiness. So that's where I wanted
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to start. But next up, I want to briefly talk about the Satanistic performance at the Grammys. Uh, I don't
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know if you guys watched it, it kind of went viral, uh, mostly in the conservative movement, I would
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say on the conservative or rather in the conservative commentators, uh, space, we were all kind of
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shocked and horrified. Although that's what the left really wants us to be is they're doing this
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to poke us and to go to us into come into talking about it. Um, but at the Grammy awards, if you
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didn't see, there was a Satanistic performance by Sam Smith and Kim Petras. It was, uh, really kind of
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gross and shocking. And I mean, meant to make us look at them and say, this is a ritual to Satan.
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So I wanted to mention why the left worships at Satan's altar rather than God's, because I think
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that there's an important point to be set on this. If God, you know, God is benevolent. He is good and
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kind and loving, and he takes care of us, but God is also judgmental in some ways. And he has standards
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that we should uphold, right? In order for societies and civilizations to thrive, we need certain
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standards. We need to be clear about what is good and what is bad, what is moral, what is right.
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But if God is judgmental and has standards to the left, that must mean that God is bad
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because Satan doesn't care what people do. Satan is nonjudgmental because he accepts anyone for doing
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anything wrong, anything bad, anything evil. But that must mean that he's good because he's not
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judgmental. When the height of morality is not being judgmental, then you get a worship of Satan.
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Satan encourages people to act in their own self-interest at the cost of others. And that's the
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interesting thing about that is that the left sees self, right? Self-interest. They see self as the most
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important and most virtuous thing. To thine own self be true is their highest virtue, even if that comes
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at the cost of other people. So Satan, who is telling people to go after whatever they or rather
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makes people think that they should go after whatever they want, right? Like that's the most
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important thing is do you. You do you is the Satan catchphrase. Whereas God is, you know, don't do unto
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others as you would not done unto yourself. That judgmental in a good way thing that God, you know,
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has created the world with and runs the world with and keeps civilization strong and society strong,
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the left can't accept it because judgment is the highest, is the highest form of evil.
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It's an interesting thing to keep in mind. So on a totally other note, right, we just kind of went
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through the zeitgeist a little bit. I wanted to just chat a little about why I love putting on makeup.
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I've been thinking about putting on makeup a little bit lately, just because it's something that really
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brings me so much joy. And I know that for some people, makeup is a waste of time, it bores them,
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but I just love putting on makeup. And the reason is, there's a few reasons. One is for me, that is my
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time. That is my time to do something for me. And it really isn't for anyone else. I just love doing
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my makeup. It like makes me happy to have some time that I just say, okay, this is my time and I
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don't have to worry about anybody else. But on top of it, I find makeup really creative and fun
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and transformative. And I like, it's like flexing my, my creative muscle every morning because I can
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do something different every single day. I can do a different kind of bronzer. I can do a different
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kind of highlight. I can do a different kind of eyeshadow and just mixing and matching colors
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and doing things that are very cool to see the change in real time. And then it washes off at
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the end of the day. So if I really didn't like it, no worries. I think that if people viewed,
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if women who are really, they view makeup as a chore, if they viewed makeup more as something fun
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and creative, then they could enjoy the process more. And that's not to say that if you're somebody
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who doesn't enjoy the wearing makeup at all that you need to do it. But if you're somebody who
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kind of feels like they should wear makeup or is in a situation where you're going to work and it's
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more professional to wear makeup, then finding the joy in it, I think is really nice. And so
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I'm a big fan. So next up, I think it's important to talk about putting your house to bed because
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recently I've been taking the time, putting in the effort to clean my house at the end of every day.
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I used to kind of let it build up, maybe do like a once a clean or twice or once a week or twice a
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week cleanup, or I'd leave dishes till the morning. But recently I've been really doing the thing that
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I've been told to do many times, which is to clean the house before you go to sleep. So you wake up to
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a clean house. It really does make a difference, especially if you work from home, knowing that
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you aren't going to have to do chores first thing in the morning and being able to get your day
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restarted right from the beginning. It is so helpful. And so I've been trying to keep up with
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cleanliness throughout the day so it doesn't all build up at night. So for example, when my son
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makes a mess on the floor, instead of leaving that till the end of the day, I will sweep up a number of
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times because he makes a number of messes throughout the day to keep the floor clean. And by the end of the
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day, when we get there, it's like by the evening, I don't have to worry about the floor being a total
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mess. Or I try to do one load of laundry a day. Or I try to wash the dishes as I go or put them in
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the dishwasher instead of in the sink. That really does make a big difference. And I think it can just
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remove a little bit of stress that we all have when we wake up in the morning. I mean, you wake up
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to a clean house and you feel like you can take on the day for sure. Last but not least, let's talk a
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little bit about a movie I rewatched with my parents and my husband the other night, How to Train Your
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Dragon. Have you guys seen that? It's been a while since I watched it, but I used to love that movie.
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And the score is absolutely outrageously good. But that movie is so fun. And I really, really enjoyed
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it. And I know that there's a second one and a third one, which I've never seen and I really want
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to watch. So let me know if you have seen those, if you've seen How to Train Your Dragon 2 and How to
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Train Your Dragon 3. I'd love to hear because I've heard good things and I want to watch them because
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I'm rewatching the first one. I really enjoyed it. Toothless is super cute. Hiccup is a little bit
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annoying, but I can enjoy his character. And just the whole concept is fun. Although I do have one
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question. So hear me out. All of the dragons in the movie are innocent, but they're responding to the
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giant like overlord dragon, which is calling them to steal animals or whatever from the people that
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hiccup is from. So my question is, they then go to attack the ginormous dragon. I keep wanting to call
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it a dinosaur because it looks like a dinosaur, but it's a dragon. And they just destroy it. But how do
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we know what the giant dragon's motivation is? I mean, question left unanswered. I don't know if that's
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a fair question, but I don't know. It seems funny that we can give all of the other dragons a pass
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and not the giant one because we learn the motivation of the smaller dragons, but we never
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learn the motivation of the giant dragon that's controlling them. They just take it out. So
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interesting thought, right? I don't know. Maybe, maybe. So now let's get into the main portion of
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today's episode, which is five ways you are fighting your femininity. We live in a world where being
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feminine is relegated to silly outward appearance things, but also more than that, it, it's just not
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valued in the same way. And I think that there's a lot of things we can do to embrace our femininity,
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right? But not just embrace it, stop fighting it. So I'm excited to share these five things with you.
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Let's just get started. So number one is not accepting your changing body. I say this as a
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postpartum mom. I'm 10 months postpartum and my body looks entirely different than it did before I had
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a baby. And I don't know that it will ever look the same. And I'm not just talking about weight gain,
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weight loss, whatever it is. I'm talking about structurally. My body is different. My hips are
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wider. My waist is a little thicker. My stomach has stretch marks on it. I have loose skin from
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carrying a baby. And it's an interesting thing because we live in a day where we're constantly
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fighting for what we used to look like, right? We're always like looking back to, okay, I want to look
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the same as I did when I was 16. I want to look the same as I did before I had a baby. I want to look
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the same as I did before I had my second baby. And the truth is that women, the feminine figure
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was meant to shift and change even before, you know, having children throughout the month,
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your body changes throughout the month around your period, your body will change because of hormonal
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shifts, right? Men's bodies don't change. Men's bodies stick one way their whole lives. If men choose
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to, you know, not take care of themselves, then, you know, they'll gain weight or whatever else it is.
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But men's bodies do not react hormonally the same way that women's do. Women's bodies are not supposed
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to stay the same. We are not supposed to look exactly the way we did before we had children,
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after we have children. We are going to lose weight. We are going to gain weight. We are going
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to have looser skin. We're going to have stretch marks. We're going to have, you know, our, our bodies,
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our, our, our structure, our skeletal structure is going to change after we birth children.
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Fighting femininity, fighting your body is telling yourself that you need to look exactly the same as you
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did all your whole life. And it's just not realistic. Your body is going to change. And it should
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change. That is part of being a woman. The fact that our bodies can change to host a human being
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is incredible. We, we love on our bodies so much. I think most women do not every woman, but most women
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do we love on our bodies so much for the fact that we can get pregnant and grow a human and our bodies
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can house a little baby and our stomach stretch. We love that our bodies are flexible enough to do
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that. But then we're like, bounce back, bounce back, bounce back. I think it's important to exercise,
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to stay healthy, to eat well. I think that's all really important because taking care of yourself
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is important. And there is a certain level of when you take care of yourself, then your body
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responds in kind, AKA, it looks better when you take care of yourself, but is it going to look the
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same? No. And I think the expectation that our bodies should remain the same throughout our entire
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lives means you're fighting your femininity. So that's number one. Number two is fighting your
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nurturing nature. When we are told to have sex with no strings attached, to sleep around and not
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get catch feelings, things like that. And there's other examples I'm going to share here, but things
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like that are fighting our nurturing nature. One of the most beautiful parts of being feminine is that
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we are so nurturing, that we want to take care of people, that we want to give them a warm and loving
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home. And fighting that by trying to say, I'm not going to give myself to someone else, right? Let's say
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in a sexual relationship, in a physical relationship is so wrong. There's a reason that saving sex until
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marriage is so beautiful because that nurturing nature where you want to take care of the person
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that you are sharing that intimacy with is a perfect place to do it. You're supposed to do
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that. That nurturing nature can come out and should come out. And in kind, your husband wants to take
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care of you. It's so important for us to hold that nurturing nature close because otherwise we let it go.
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And a woman who doesn't nurture starts to lose a little bit of herself. Now, another version of
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this is when we become harsh disciplinarians or harsh spreader of truths. Now, to be clear,
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I think that there are times that it is a lot of fun to be a little bit more strident, a little bit
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more brash in the way that we talk about ideas. If you follow me on Instagram, if you watch my reels,
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you will know that I do that with, with that content. I think that it's funny,
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but the truth is when I'm really trying to change people's minds, when I'm really trying to give
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some guidance, it has to be gentle. It has to be nurturing. It's so easy to kind of want to cross
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over into that, like, here's what it is. And I'm telling you what to do. And I'm going to be harsh
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and I'm going to be a disciplinarian and I'm going to be bossy or whatever else it is. But it is much
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more effective when we lean into that nurturing nature and we use our gentle guidance to help
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impart wisdom, impart ideas, impart help. I know that even in, as a mother, it is unnatural
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natural for me to really discipline harshly my son. When I come to him in a loving, kind,
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nurturing way, first of all, he responds better. But second of all, I can feel that I feel pride in
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my mothering in those moments. So don't fight that nurturing nature. Embrace it because that is a huge
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part of your femininity. Number three is embracing hustle culture rather than slow living. Guys, I am
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I am over hustle culture. I am over it. I don't like it. It's not my thing. I am much more for slow
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living. Now, I know that slow living can make a lot of people like pause and not really understand
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and think that you're saying they have to quit their jobs and stay at home all the time and never do
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anything that's really like stressful. That's not what I mean. I just mean being intentional,
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enjoying your every day, taking time in those pockets that you have it to not be stressed and
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not searching out stress in the moments you don't have to. AKA, I have had many moments where I have a
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few minutes just to spare and instead of taking advantage of them in a positive, gentle way and
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thinking, oh, you know, I have a couple minutes. Maybe I'll read or maybe I'll play with my son.
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I'll be like, what else do I have to do? I need to find something to do. I get really urgent about it.
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That to me is more of a hustle culture perspective of I need to constantly be busy. I need to constantly
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be producing. I need to constantly be doing something very hectic. It's much more feminine
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to embrace slow living, to cook something, take an extra 20 minutes and cook something tastier rather
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than faster. To sit with your baby and play for 15 minutes, just directed attention rather than giving
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him two minutes and then running around to clean your house. It's so important to lean into this life
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that we have and rushing, constantly feeling rushed. Life is short, but it's also long. And it's
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important to us, for us to take advantage of each and every moment and enjoy it. And when you're rushing
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to get things done all the time and you like need to be busy, you're also rushing time. Like you will
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get to the end of the day and feel like that your day was just like hectic and it just passed you by
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and you were running around as opposed to maybe half of your day is like that. And the other half of
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your day you get to the end, you're like, wow, that was really a nice, luxurious day. I wish for all of
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us that our time feels luxurious. And that doesn't mean a hundred percent of the time, but even those
00:27:11.740
small pockets of time that you really allow yourself to just take things easy or to invest in a project
00:27:22.040
that's fun and immersive. It's so feminine. It's so important. I think start with cooking. That's an
00:27:33.140
easy place to start. Cooking doesn't always have to be two steps, one and done. Like it can be a
00:27:39.880
thing that you follow the recipe and enjoy, like choose something that's just a little bit more
00:27:45.180
complicated, a little bit. It doesn't have to be a full day project, but maybe something that you've
00:27:49.900
never done before. The other night I made a spaghetti squash and I'd never made spaghetti squash before.
00:27:55.680
And I made a bolognese sauce that from scratch, like I didn't just pour marinara sauce from a
00:28:02.440
from a bottle into the pan. I made one from scratch. And just those two things added maybe 15 minutes to
00:28:09.680
the whole process, but it made it feel so much more luxurious to me. And I really enjoyed the process. So
00:28:17.620
embrace slow living and reject hustle culture. Number four, the fourth way you are fighting your femininity
00:28:27.120
is wearing only lounge wear. I know that sounds funny, but we are in the era of athleisure. That is the
00:28:37.320
fashion of today. Most people wear leggings and a sweatshirt every single day. And wearing pretty clothing that
00:28:45.760
makes you feel good is feminine. Wearing pretty clothing that accentuates your figure in a modest way. That's so
00:28:52.980
feminine. Constantly covering yourself and what's comfortable or what's easy or things that really disguise your
00:29:00.940
figure, disguise your body. It just it takes away one of the really beautiful elements of womanhood. And that's not to
00:29:09.820
say that you have to dress fancy or that you have to like really think hard every day about your outfit.
00:29:15.760
But it means taking a moment, picking something from your closet that really speaks to you, that you
00:29:21.940
really love, that expresses your personality, that makes you feel good in your body. And that looks
00:29:28.080
different for everybody. I had Sarah Therese on on my podcast a couple episodes ago, and she dresses
00:29:33.680
not totally different from me because both of us actually there are some overlap, but she dresses in a
00:29:39.440
way that is not typically feminine, but makes her feel like a woman, right? Like she feels really
00:29:46.860
good in her figure. She feels really good in her body. I'm not speaking for her, but I think that
00:29:52.060
that's true. I think she's kind of given that across on her Instagram. And wearing just the same pair of
00:30:00.620
baggy pants and the same baggy sweatshirt and whatever every single day, it just takes away from the
00:30:07.440
beauty of our figures, the beauty of the bodies God gave us and the beauty of expressing ourselves
00:30:13.720
through our clothing. Style is a really fun way to express your personality. And I always say it
00:30:22.220
skips the first step of trying to show someone who you are when they can kind of tell who you are
00:30:27.340
through your clothes. So number four is wearing only loungewear fights your femininity. So stop doing
00:30:35.640
that. Start wearing beautiful clothing and clothing that makes you feel good. Number five is sinking
00:30:42.800
into social media. That's one of the ways you're fighting your femininity. Femininity calls for
00:30:49.440
socialization and being an active member of your community. Social media makes you feel like you're
00:30:55.560
doing that, but really you're sequestering yourself behind a screen. The most dangerous things in life
00:31:02.560
are the things that make you think you're doing something positive. So you invest your time and
00:31:07.020
energy into it, but really are a waste of your time. Another example often for men is video games.
00:31:14.640
Now I'm not like anti all video games. I think there are certain scenarios when you're playing with your
00:31:18.520
friends, when it is a social activity that can be fine, but a lot of video gaming is about pursuit of a goal.
00:31:28.560
And so you'll play until you get that goal, but really there's no goal to be had in beating a video
00:31:36.340
game, right? It's not really useful. The same as social media. Social media feels like you're
00:31:42.720
socializing. It's called social media. Oh, I'm talking to my friends. I'm keeping in touch with
00:31:48.380
people. I'm following along with their lives. But the truth is that the advent of social media has
00:31:56.700
actually ruined a lot of relationships. It keeps you kind of in touch on the very fringes of your
00:32:04.620
mind at all times, but you're not actually in touch. Like when is the last time you spoke to the people
00:32:11.440
that you follow on social media, actually called them on the phone or saw them in person and got
00:32:16.180
coffee? Not very often. It's probably pretty rare. So social media takes away that impetus of us
00:32:23.960
as women to be really active community members and active parts of our social groups. There's
00:32:30.520
something wonderful about having a book club in person or on my substack, for example, or being a
00:32:37.240
part of your synagogues community or your church's community. It's so important. And it makes you,
00:32:45.700
one of the things I always say is important about femininity is being strong enough that people can
00:32:49.860
depend on you. And that is one of the most core things about being a good community member.
00:32:55.580
So if you are not available for that, because you're too active on social media, and I say this
00:33:02.360
to myself as much as anyone else, you are fighting your femininity and it's not worth it. It's so much
00:33:08.180
better to be a part of your PTA or to be somebody who is helping your community grow and be better
00:33:17.380
with your involvement as a woman. It really makes a difference. So those are my five ways you are
00:33:25.520
fighting your femininity. Let me know what you guys think. I always love to hear your thoughts.
00:33:30.680
So now let's get into today's faith talk. So today's Parsha is Yitro. Today's Torah portion is Yitro,
00:33:38.780
which is Hebrew for Jethro, Moses' father-in-law. And here is the summary of this Parsha from Chabad's
00:33:47.040
website. Moses' father-in-law Jethro hears the great miracles which God performed for the people
00:33:52.500
of Israel and comes from Midian to the Israelite camp, bringing with him Moses' wife and his two
00:33:58.160
sons. Jethro advises Moses to appoint a hierarchy of magistrates and judges to assist him in the task
00:34:04.600
of governing and administering justice to the people. Honestly, I could do a whole talk just about
00:34:10.120
that, about how important it is to delegate and not try and take on all of the responsibilities,
00:34:14.980
because when we do, we end up doing everything a little bit worse as opposed to taking on the
00:34:20.760
things that we can actually handle and doing them well. But that's not the main focus. But I think
00:34:26.440
that that's just interesting. It's an important point for us to remember. The children of Israel
00:34:31.440
camp opposite Mount Sinai, where they are told that God has chosen them to be his kingdom of priests and
00:34:36.480
holy nation. The people respond by proclaiming, all that God has spoken, we shall do. On the sixth day of
00:34:42.580
the third month, seven weeks after the Exodus, the entire nation of Israel assembles at the foot of
00:34:47.480
Mount Sinai for the giving of the Torah. God descends on the mountain amidst thunder, lightning,
00:34:52.980
billows of smoke, and the blast of the shofar, and summons Moses to ascend. Now, I just want to
00:34:59.880
put in here that I feel like it's interesting. Doesn't it sound like Mount Sinai is just a volcano
00:35:04.860
from that description? I don't think it is. I mean, at least from what we know about Mount Sinai now,
00:35:10.740
it's not. But it just seems like a volcano. It's sort of funny. God proclaims the Ten Commandments,
00:35:18.440
commanding the people of Israel to believe in God, not to worship idols or take God's name in vain,
00:35:23.180
to keep the Sabbath, honor their parents, not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal,
00:35:28.040
and not to bear false witness or covet another's property. The people cry out to Moses that the
00:35:33.360
revelation is too intense for them to bear, begging him to receive the Torah from God and convey it to
00:35:38.080
them. I think this is such an interesting Torah portion because, I mean, so important, right?
00:35:44.080
We're getting the Ten Commandments. Everything that this is all based on, everything we believe in,
00:35:49.100
it's amazing. It's incredible. It's just so interesting to go back to these like big turning
00:35:54.280
points in faith, in our faith. You know, some parshas, some Torah portions are more focused on
00:36:01.380
a specific story, but things like this. This is the moment where the Israelites became the Jews,
00:36:08.460
where the Israelites received the Torah, and that's just amazing. But what I want to focus on today is
00:36:13.900
the fact that the Israelites were traumatized, essentially, when they heard God speaking
00:36:20.660
directly to them. The question is why? I think so many of us wish we could just talk to God,
00:36:27.640
like, and have him respond, right? Like talk to God face to face in a sense, so that we could get an
00:36:34.200
understanding of what this is all about. Why do bad things happen? Why is this happening, not this
00:36:40.020
thing? Like, why is the world the way that it is? We want to understand the world and talking to God,
00:36:47.460
speaking to God, being there with God seems like an amazing opportunity. Why would they be traumatized
00:36:55.780
by it? I understand the idea that it could be just scary, but there's something in, I think it has to
00:37:02.860
just be more than it was just, you know, God's voice was a loudspeaker and there were fireworks,
00:37:09.240
you know? It's not just the surround sound experience. I think there's more to it than that.
00:37:16.440
My idea of God and of being in the presence of God is that it's an immersive experience.
00:37:26.920
God isn't just a thing. He's not just a person. He's not just a creature. He's not just a loud,
00:37:35.940
booming voice. God is everything. That means he is past, present, and future.
00:37:45.180
All at once, happening in front of you. He is truth in all of its glory.
00:37:52.360
When you are in God's presence, when God was giving the Torah to the Jewish people,
00:37:58.120
he wasn't just loud. It wasn't just a voice they were hearing. It was being in the presence of
00:38:05.940
everything all at once. That's too overwhelming. It's too overwhelming to see and know
00:38:14.900
everything that God knows. We think that if we understood everything from beginning to end,
00:38:21.660
we'd be able to navigate the world in a more positive and effective way. But the truth is,
00:38:26.920
if we knew everything that was going to happen and everything that did happen, it would be too much
00:38:33.620
to comprehend. And we probably still couldn't accept it. We are not able to see what true good
00:38:41.920
looks like. In the sense that we don't know why everything has to happen the way that it does.
00:38:48.540
God does. God understands. God understands and weighs things accordingly. We can't see things
00:38:54.560
outside of our own worldview. So even seeing through God's eyes or seeing everything that God knows,
00:39:00.920
we couldn't comprehend how everything needs to fit in and slot in with each other. So we might see
00:39:07.940
something that looks like a complete and utter tragedy or complete and utter triumph. And while God
00:39:16.160
can see that as all part of a whole, we can only see it at our level. We can only see how it affects
00:39:26.860
the certain things we understand. And even within the context of everything in the world,
00:39:32.080
it's still too big, too much for us to take in. We have to trust in God's plan. Because even if we
00:39:43.260
could see it, we couldn't understand it. So I think that that's what we can learn. We can't really,
00:39:52.300
truly know God, even though we want to. Even though we want to be able to connect with God,
00:40:01.920
in the sense of understanding everything he does, we just can't. We simply cannot. The human mind
00:40:09.520
cannot accept all of the different layers and levels that God is and knows and takes care of.
00:40:21.860
The truth is, in order to be human, in order to live in the world that God created for us,
00:40:27.940
we cannot know everything that God has planned. So at the end of the day, we have to trust in God
00:40:35.840
and believe in God and deepen our relationship with God in order to find beauty and meaning
00:40:43.180
in life. And that means not necessarily understanding how everything is going to turn out,
00:40:49.320
but knowing that God does. And that we are not God. There's a reason that we are not God, that we are
00:40:56.920
just people. That God put on earth to be a part of him, right? We each have a little bit of God inside
00:41:05.140
of us, our souls, but we are not ultimately God. And that is okay. It's hard, but it's also okay.
00:41:14.780
So we have to accept where we're at, who we are and where we're at, and trust that God
00:41:25.900
can provide for us and knows more than we do. So that is my faith talk for today. Let's go ahead
00:41:35.760
and get into my premium subscriber questions. Okay. So the first question I am pulling from our
00:41:42.560
discussion thread on Substack, we have community discussion threads every week. And the question
00:41:47.960
is, how did you manage being heavier after pregnancy and buying clothes you knew you wouldn't
00:41:52.940
want long-term? That sort of relates back to the main portion of today's episode that women's bodies
00:41:58.620
are ever changing. But I think this is such a funny question because I've been thinking about this
00:42:01.920
because I want to declutter my closet. But at the same time, I have so many different stages of my
00:42:11.420
body that I will be going through in the next five to 10 years, right? Because I will be getting
00:42:17.640
pregnant again with God's help. I will be having a postpartum period. I will hopefully be breastfeeding
00:42:23.540
again. I will then be, you know, not breastfeeding and I'll just be kind of back to my pre-pregnancy
00:42:29.720
weight hopefully, or at least some version of that. And I will be not breastfeeding and then I'll be
00:42:36.400
pregnant again. So it's a cycle. So I have to keep all of my clothes for all of those different times
00:42:42.680
in my future. I have to keep the clothes for maternity. I have to keep the clothes for breastfeeding. I have
00:42:47.400
to keep the clothes for, you know, one or two sizes bigger than I am for that postpartum period.
00:42:53.400
So I think the answer to your question is, if you are planning on getting pregnant again after the
00:43:01.060
current pregnancy that you're in, then you can invest in a couple of pieces. And I don't mean invest in
00:43:06.120
like a really nice amount of money, but you can get some pieces, or rather a really nice amount,
00:43:12.540
a really nice piece of clothing. What I mean is, is a piece of clothing that isn't stretchy.
00:43:17.680
You can spend money on a pair of pants that's a size or two bigger than you normally are because you
00:43:23.960
will wear it again after your next pregnancy. That's what I did. I have a few pieces that like
00:43:29.840
a pair of jeans or a couple of pair of jeans that I can wear post pregnancies because I plan on being
00:43:35.240
pregnant multiple times. But if that isn't the case for you, I think finding some clothing and
00:43:42.660
even if it is the case for you, it's just useful to have some clothing that's stretchy. I have a lot
00:43:47.100
of clothes that I got for my postpartum period that were just a little more forgiving and could go from,
00:43:53.880
you know, my 15 pounds overweight that I was after having a baby to five pounds overweight or
00:43:59.760
closer to my pre-pregnancy size. So choosing clothing that is just either a little bit boxier
00:44:08.400
or a little bit stretchier will be a little more forgiving on your body and can still be worn
00:44:13.480
through many of the stages that your body's going to go through pre-post-pregnancy and during pregnancy.
00:44:21.220
So that's my, that's my, my suggestion, my advice. What movies or shows are you and your husband
00:44:28.700
watching lately? So my husband and I just finished watching the newest season of Fauda. We loved the
00:44:35.340
first three seasons. We weren't the biggest fan of the last season, to be honest, but we loved that
00:44:40.340
show. We love the characters. It's in Hebrew. It's an Israeli show and we really liked the way it's
00:44:45.900
produced. We really liked the stories. It's all about parallels, which is really interesting. So
00:44:51.160
I do recommend the first three seasons. I don't know what's coming after this season. So maybe
00:44:55.100
there's like something that can redeem it, but I didn't love this current season. But I do love
00:45:02.180
Israeli television because we also watched another Israeli show called When Heroes Fly. And I really
00:45:06.920
enjoyed it. I did feel like they didn't stick the landing. Like the last episode wasn't great. It was
00:45:11.040
a limited series, but I did enjoy it up until the ending. We also, we are doing a rewatch of
00:45:18.580
community. We don't watch it every night or anything like that, but it's like, if we're doing
00:45:22.040
chores and we need to clean up the house at the end of the night, we'll like throw on community on
00:45:25.880
the TV and it just makes us laugh. So that's one of our favorite shows to just kind of have on in
00:45:29.920
the background. And we recently watched the movie, The Pale Blue Eye with Christian Bale. And it's an
00:45:37.920
interesting movie. Goes in, I mean, it's, it's gruesome. So keep that in mind, but it's,
00:45:45.340
it's a detective story. In some ways, it's more like an old fashioned detective story.
00:45:50.360
Like it's, I can imagine this was made in the 1930s or 1940s, but it's just shot more slickly
00:45:57.180
because it's current. And I like Christian Bale's acting a lot. The other character who plays
00:46:03.060
Poe, Edgar Allan Poe, is the guy who played Dudley from Harry Potter. So that's funny.
00:46:10.940
And it's, I think I would recommend it, but it is dark and it's not totally what you expect.
00:46:19.960
So yeah, interesting film. Definitely interesting. The next question is, I'm struggling with my
00:46:27.680
dating life right now. I'm in college and I have a few guy friends who I think are cute.
00:46:32.740
I keep waiting for the guys I like to approach me, but it's just not happening. Should I be doing
00:46:37.660
something differently? Any suggestions? So yes, I do have some suggestions, but also what I'll say
00:46:44.920
is dating is hard. And I went through this exact thing when I was dating, there were all of these
00:46:48.820
guys that I was interested in and I felt like they would never reciprocate. And I was like,
00:46:53.360
what is this? What is wrong with me that I can't get the guys that I like to be interested in me? It was
00:47:00.020
so frustrating. So one of the things I learned, and I've talked about this before on my channel
00:47:05.740
is the idea of extroversion and introversion. So when I was in the dating market, I was very
00:47:17.860
extroverted. Now, what I'll say about myself is that I am an introverted, an extroverted introvert,
00:47:23.760
which means that I generally recharge by being alone, but I'm very comfortable in social situations
00:47:29.880
and I enjoy social situations. So I would be hanging out with people and they would think
00:47:35.660
that I was overall an extrovert. Well, generally, the way things work is that extroverts are attracted
00:47:43.600
to introverts and introverts are attracted to extroverts. So when I was going out to these parties
00:47:49.100
and meeting people and whatever, I was attracting introverts. Introverts were the ones who were
00:47:56.160
expressing their interest in me. And I am not attracted to introverts. I don't really get
00:48:01.420
along. It's not that I don't get along with them. I just find it a little bit boring. That wasn't my
00:48:07.680
thing as far as dating. I wanted to be with a guy who was extroverted. I wanted to be with a guy who
00:48:11.760
was really kind of fun to talk to and could fill up a room. The guy I ended up with is probably the
00:48:17.320
most extroverted person you'll ever meet. So I really liked that. And what I had to learn to do
00:48:23.260
was pull back on that extroverted quality when I was around people so that I would attract
00:48:29.920
extroverts. And it worked. It's possible that you are putting out a vibe that is attracting a
00:48:38.020
different kind of guy than you want. So if you are doing the same thing that I do and you're finding
00:48:44.700
that the extroverted guys that you're interested in aren't showing interest in you, maybe try being a
00:48:50.480
little more introverted and see if that kind of pulls those men who you are interested in towards
00:48:57.280
you. The other things you can do are just making yourself attractive and approachable. I always am
00:49:05.280
a big fan of, you know, putting on nice clothing, doing your hair a little bit, putting on a little
00:49:10.640
bit of makeup, whether that be mascara or more, and just trying to look your best and also trying to
00:49:18.700
seem like you are a friendly person that someone can approach, kind of giving men the opportunity
00:49:24.820
to come over and chat with you. So that's always important. The last thing is maybe the guys you're
00:49:32.540
attracted to aren't the right guys. Sometimes we are attracted to guys who are like fun but really
00:49:38.780
aren't good for us because the chemistry is there but the compatibility isn't. So evaluate that.
00:49:46.200
Evaluate if the guys that you are actually interested in are good for you and then you'll see maybe
00:49:53.580
that's the maybe that's one of the factors here is that you it's possible that you're attracted to
00:49:59.760
guys who aren't really the kinds of guys you should be ending up with. I've had that experience
00:50:05.800
where you kind of go through a phase where the guys that you are interested in are not really good
00:50:09.600
for you. So just examine that. That's my advice. And my last question here is what are your thoughts
00:50:18.520
on purity culture? So I did a little bit of research into purity culture and I'm not going to say I'm an
00:50:23.740
expert on it because I'm not. And here's where I come with that. So the idea of waiting to have sex
00:50:32.620
until marriage is incredibly important. I am a huge proponent of that. I talk about it very openly.
00:50:37.600
I think that giving sex the importance it deserves within the framework of family and within the
00:50:45.420
framework of marriage is really really like the way to go. But when we talk about purity culture
00:50:54.700
the issue I have is twofold. One is that there's such an emphasis on virginity as if virginity in and of
00:51:05.620
itself is important. Now I don't care about virginity. I don't care about the virgin idea like
00:51:14.040
that. Who cares? Because what ends up happening I heard is that for a lot of women it's hard for
00:51:22.240
them to break free of that narrative of like the purity of being a virgin. And then when they get
00:51:28.660
married and they're allowed to have sex it's like okay well am I impure now? Is sex bad? Is sex gross?
00:51:37.360
I am not a proponent of that that framing. Sex is wonderful within the right boundaries
00:51:45.040
within with the right person when you can start a family and when you can grow an intimate relationship
00:51:51.660
with the person you've made a lifelong commitment to. Sex is great. And I never struggled with that
00:51:59.280
feeling of like oh sex is bad. Sex is bad. Sex is bad. And now I have to flick a switch and now say sex
00:52:05.700
is good. I was always under the impression that sex was great. It just wasn't for me before I got married.
00:52:11.880
It wasn't for my life until I was with my spouse. So I find that that's an issue is the idea that
00:52:21.560
virginity is what matters. It's not what matters. We're giving sex too much credence or rather virginity
00:52:31.220
too much credence. And it's not. It's not about virginity. It's about viewing sex for what it's for.
00:52:38.440
Sex is very important and sex is beautiful but it has a role. And if we understand its role then it
00:52:45.320
doesn't need to be about virginity and purity. It needs it's about the utility the utility of sex
00:52:52.560
and how amazing it can be when it's treated with respect. And when I say utility I don't mean
00:52:58.280
from a utilitarian perspective. I mean it can be pleasure and and wonder and just a really great way
00:53:06.440
to bring a couple together but it also has a an important role in reproduction and that means that
00:53:13.900
it needs to be within an important framework for couples who are married and should bring couples
00:53:20.660
together. So I don't like the idea of the focus on virginity itself. Holding virginity on a pedestal
00:53:28.900
rather than recognizing the beauty of sex and its importance within the bounds of marriage
00:53:33.320
is what the problem is. Now the other problem I have with purity culture is the idea that
00:53:38.880
because it's about virginity if somebody loses their virginity and has sex then they can't come
00:53:47.900
back from it. They like are now stained and I have an issue with that because once you realize
00:53:56.820
what the importance of sex is and how what it's for then you're on the right page. You've done all
00:54:03.380
the right things. You are moving forward and you can put sex in its rightful place. That's the important
00:54:11.440
thing. If the fact that you had sex before is now like a stain on you that you can't
00:54:18.420
come back from that is a problem. So I don't think I'm a fan of purity culture because I think it kind of
00:54:27.580
misses the mark on what the point is of waiting to have sex until you're married. And I don't really
00:54:35.900
like the phrase. I don't know if I've used it before but I'm thinking on it right now. I don't really like the phrase
00:54:41.420
saving yourself for marriage or rather yeah saving yourself for marriage as opposed to saving
00:54:48.100
sex for marriage. Because the virginity it kind of gets up in that virginity area again where it's like
00:54:56.320
okay you as virgin are holy you as person who has had sex are not. And that is incorrect. It's just that
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sex is really really beautiful when you can share it with your husband. And using sex as something just
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for pleasure and hedonistic whatever is much worse for everyone involved. So that's my response to the
00:55:24.060
idea of purity culture. But if you have any thoughts and feelings on that I'd love to hear them in the
00:55:30.140
comments. And that is it for today's video. And that is it for today's podcast. I hope you guys
00:55:37.820
enjoyed it. Let me know what you think in the comments on Substack or here on YouTube. If you
00:55:44.160
aren't already subscribed make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts so you can get notified of my new
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episodes as well as Spotify or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. And I would love if you would
00:55:53.180
consider sharing this with friends and family so that they can hear it as well. And I'll see you guys in my